


one mistake (pretty much the only one) they never made

by Kindness



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-29
Updated: 2011-01-29
Packaged: 2019-07-08 09:19:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15927440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindness/pseuds/Kindness
Summary: It's almost four AM when it wakes her, the sharp smack of a well-aimed pebble, and then another, and then a third.





	one mistake (pretty much the only one) they never made

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/35812.html?thread=5472228#cmt5472228). Finally getting around to transferring my handful of LJ-only fics to AO3, in the Year of Our Lord 2018.
> 
> Prompts: _wedding, tequila, inevitable, addiction_

It's almost four AM when it wakes her, the sharp smack of a well-aimed pebble, and then another, and then a third. For a minute she's not sure where she's coming to, if she's fifteen or thirty-three, and it happens like a habit – fumbling out from under the covers, stubbing her toe on the way to her window. Staring out into the dark blinking sleep from her eyes, as if there were any number of people it could be and not just (always) Chris.

She can't find her shoes – where did she _put_ them last night?! – but she's quieter without them anyway, tiptoeing down the stairs, easing open the front door. A shiver jumps up her spine as her bare feet hit the porch.

He's standing on the lawn, winding up to throw again, a handful of rocks in his spare hand. The way he sees her hasn't changed in twenty years; how all his muscles relax; the soft sound of ammunition falling away. The grass is wet between her toes. He smiles at her like he thinks maybe he shouldn't.

Her favorite thing is how they fit together, the shudder of his indrawn breath, hooking her chin into the divot of his shoulder.

"I thought you were in California," she says, muffled, pressing her nose into his neck. He's very warm. She feels dizzy and stupid and like she might be hallucinating.

"Boston."

"Boston?"

"Boston."

Even when they pull apart, they never really separate. They're standing so close together now, she could hook her fingers in his belt loops. Maybe she will. Or –

"Lor?" He touches her cheek. "Eyes up here."

"Hi." She can tell by the way he starts to smile again that she's grinning like an idiot; either that or there's something on her face. She doesn't think there ought to be something on her face (but then, you never know).

"I – brought you something," he says, and starts to back away from her. There's a car behind him –

There's a car behind him.

She trails him to the driver's side door but doesn't let him open it. It's cold and solid against her hip and as she leans there the world seems just a little bit less spinny. Christopher is giving her a look she can't quite get her head around.

That's new, too.

"You brought me a Volvo." She taps him on the nose and drags her finger down across his mouth. "How'd you fit it on your bike, Houdini?"

He smiles as he catches her wrist. She really, really wishes he would laugh. But – "I brought you a CD," he corrects, and gently returns her hand to her side. It's colder out tonight than she thought.

"You brought me a CD?"

"A couple CDs, and, actually, they're for Max. I was thinking you... What?"

Later, it'll be hard for her to piece together the memory – how exactly it all goes down. It's something about his voice saying, _Max_ ; it's something he sees in her face, and she sees in his, and her palm resting just below his heart; it's something about how he was so _close_ and she'd no idea when she called but now he's _here_ and so solid and real and _Christopher_ ; and she said – well, she can't remember what she said, but whatever it was it wasn't what he heard, thank God.

When she pulls him into her, he tastes like apples and alcohol – or maybe she's the one who tastes like alcohol - and he's got stubble that'll be gone by morning and her skin burns pleasantly where it scrapes. She slides her hands up under his shirt and splays her fingers across his ribs, and she laughs into his mouth when he shivers. And somehow, even though they've done this barely a half-dozen times since he left, she always seems to have missed it.

He says her name – once, twice – like he wants her to stop and also like he doesn't. And she knows he's maybe trying to tell her something, but maybe it's not something she wants to hear, so instead she kisses him again, again and harder and longer, and urgency quickens between them. Sharp and familiar.

A Volvo's about as far as you can get from a Porsche, but fumbling against the door, falling into the back - bumping heads and elbows and knees like geometry still eludes them - all that is more or less the same. They defy evolution; they're as desperate and irresponsible and bright behind her eyes as ever. And when everything is far away she hears herself bite out his name, and he groans into her shoulder like all those halfhearted objections never happened, and all she can think is how she always loved how he couldn't say no.

It's not until the morning proper, horrendously hungover at the inn, when he's back in Boston, probably, and she's wondering why she never asked when (or why) he moved, and Max comes over all chipper and grown-up and _normal_ and she doesn't have his keys because _of course_ she forgot – that it crosses her mind that she should have been surprised to see him.


End file.
